Manage your browsing experience with Edge

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ISSUE 22.20 • 2025-05-19 BROWSERS By Mary Branscombe There are a lot of useful features in the Edge browser that you might not have found — because th
[See the full post at: Manage your browsing experience with Edge]

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ibe98765, abbodi86, fisher75, lmacri

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In AskWoody Plus, 22.17, 2025-04-28, the article “Which Web browser is the most secure for 2025?”, Microsoft Edge was rated the least secure browser. Respectfully, I’m wondering why the article “Manage your browsing experience with Edge” was published, rather than giving details on the more secure browsers.

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The April article was based on a review written six years ago, before Edge started getting regular feature and frequent security updates.

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Thank you for your information.  I’m still confused.  Why would Brian Livingston, in AskWoody Plus, 22.17, 2025-04-28, talk about ratings that were 6 years old?  Readers, like myself, subscribe to AskWoody Plus to get the latest information to help make decisions.  (Incidentally, I was a Woody MVP a couple of decades ago, in my younger years)

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Andy M, b

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Honestly, the best way to manage your browser experience is to use Firefox instead of Edge.

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LH, ibe98765

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Tell us honestly why you formed that opinion.

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The superior user interface and experience in general (YMMV), the customization opportunities, the increased privacy and security… in short, almost everything.  Plus I prefer to support Mozilla than the Evil Empire.  To each their own.

 

 

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Myst, cyberSAR

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I’ve never been able to figure out why Edge refuses to remember my logon credentials for a slew of various sites, including the NYT.  And no, I am not clearing cookies or stopping them from being saved, AFAIK.

I really wish browsers would return to being just a simple web browser and not a pseudo OS with far too much functionality and complications!

 

If you need screen capture, for example, Windows provides that or you can select from a large number of free and paid apps.

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Windows doesn’t capture scrolling pages like capture full page in Edge.

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assuming you don’t have Edge set to delete all data when you close it (which would include credentials — and I’ve seen guides that suggest turning this setting on), I’d start by checking you have the right profile selected (if you have more than one), checking in settings that Offer to save passwords is selected as well as Allow sites to save and read cookie data (recommended); if that doesn’t solve it, check the Windows credential manager service is running (if it is, you can try restarting it). in the past there have been some third-party security apps that could interfere with this; hopefully they’ve been fixed but if you have an older security tools, try updating or even pausing it to see if that’s it.

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Hi Mary Branscombe:

Thanks for your informative article. I use Firefox as my default browser, but on occasion I have to troubleshoot MS Edge problems (especially with misbehaving or buggy browser extensions) and your instructions on how to check browser performance at More Tools | Browser Task Manager ** will be particularly helpful.

** For Firefox users, see the Mozilla support article Task Manager – see whether tabs or extensions are slowing down Firefox.
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Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.5854 * Firefox v138.0.4 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.25030.2-1.1.25040.1 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.3.0.186-132.0.5253 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783 * Microsoft Edge v136.0.3240.76

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Mary Branscombe

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Does anyone know any tricks to make the new tab page of Edge really completely blank and remove the search box and & cookie banner and other junk?

 

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Blank New Tab replaces your New tab page with a blank one.
Its colors, icon and title match Edge, and it adapts to light and dark theme.

It’s open source. Check it out on GitHub
https://github.com/szanuj/blank-new-tab

Edge may disable Blank New Tab on install. Enable it in the Manage Extensions page (edge://extensions).

Blank New Tab extension

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Save_Us_from_MS

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I was hoping without installing anything like with Group Policy or something… thanks anyways.

 

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Group Policy is not something you install. It exists in Windows Pro or above.

cheers, Paul

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He meant (and said – see “like with”) he was hoping to use Group Policy to avoid installing anything else (but I don’t think any relevant policy exists).

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b wrote:

(but I don’t think any relevant policy exists).

Actually, it does – NewTabPageLocation

However, as happens too often with such policies…

This policy is available only on Windows instances that are joined to a Microsoft Active Directory domain, joined to Microsoft Azure Active Directory, or instances that enrolled for device management.

So it’s not available for normal users!

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you won’t be able to get rid of the cookie banner because it’s served intermittently so even if you zap it with an adblocker (uBlock Origin has a zapper for individual page elements) it may have a different element ID when it comes back, but that might work for the search bar. You can clear almost everything else off the page with the settings in Edge itself. Click the cog icon top right and start turning things off.

 

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lmacri

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Save_Us_from_MS wrote:

Does anyone know any tricks to make the new tab page of Edge really completely blank and remove the search box and & cookie banner and other junk?

Hi Save_Us_from_MS:

If you have a Professional edition of Win 10 or Win 11 open a Run dialog box (Win key + R), enter gpedit.msc to open your Local Group Policy Editor, and DISABLE the setting at Computer Configuration | Administrative Templates | Windows Components | Microsoft Edge | Allow Web Content on New Page. This should display a blank page the next time you restart your computer and open a new tab page in MS Edge.

See Brink’s TenForums tutorial How to Enable or Disable Web Content on New Tab Page in Microsoft Edge for further details.
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Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.5854 * Firefox v138.0.4 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.25040.2-1.1.25040.1 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.3.1.188-133.0.5274 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783 * Microsoft Edge v136.0.3240.92

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lmacri wrote:

See Brink’s TenForums tutorial How to Enable or Disable Web Content on New Tab Page in Microsoft Edge for further details.

Hi Save_Us_from_MS:

Further to Phil Rabichow’s post # 2776757, I can confirm the MS Edge LGPE setting suggested <here> in Brink’s tutorial doesn’t work on my Win 10 Pro machine (i.e., if I DISABLE “Allow Web Content on New Page” this does NOT display a blank page on my MS Edge new tab page).

See Geoff Daniell’s 30-Mar-2019 post # 4 in Brink’s tutorial about the block Microsoft has put in place to prevent that LGPE setting from taking effect.
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Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.5854 * Firefox v138.0.4 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.25040.2-1.1.25040.1 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.3.1.188-133.0.5274 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783 * Microsoft Edge v136.0.3240.92

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Save_Us_from_MS

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Thanks for the info!  WOW incredible so it’s a “violation of Windows Policy” to have a really blank new tab in Edge?!?!

Also I had disabled “Allow Web Content on New Page” gp a while a go and it did nothing. Windows 10 Pro not on Active Directory.

So apparently you need a series of registry “hacks” just to be able to apply the group policy! absolutely ridiculous!

https://hitco.at/blog/apply-edge-policies-for-non-domain-joined-devices/

 

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Save_Us_from_MS wrote:

So apparently you need a series of registry “hacks” just to be able to apply the group policy! absolutely ridiculous!

Hi Save_Us_from_MS:

AFAIK the short answer is “Yes”, but hopefully I’m wrong about that.

See the discussion following my 27-May-2025 post # 5 in Brink’s tutorial How to Enable or Disable Web Content on New Tab Page in Microsoft Edge in Windows 10. According to Brink’s post # 6 that tutorial only works for the old “legacy” (non-Chromium) edition of MS Edge, so I’m not sure why that outdated tutorial is still posted on the TenForums site.

Garlin’s post # 7 also suggests that Gunnar Haslinger’s instructions at https://hitco.at/blog/apply-edge-policies-for-non-domain-joined-devices/ on how to apply Chromium policies for HomepageLocation, NewTabPageLocation, etc. that are currently blocked in MS Edge (Chromium) might be the only way to get this browser to automatically display a blank page when you open a new tab. I assume Microsoft has deliberately placed these policy restrictions on MS Edge (Chromium) to force users to use Bing and/or Copilot when running web searches from the New Tab Page.
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Just FYI, I have configured MS Edge so that it displays a custom page instead of a New Tab Page when MS Edge is launched or when I click the Home button. If you haven’t already done this you can go to Settings | Start, Home and New Tabs (or type edge://settings/startHomeNTP in the address bar) and change the settings for both “When Edge Starts” and “Home Button” from New Tab Page (the default option) to any custom URL you prefer. I live in Canada and the first thing I usually do when I open MS Edge is to run a Google search so I’ve chosen https://www.google.ca/ as the landing page for both those custom URLs.
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Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.5854 * Firefox v139.0.0 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.25040.2-1.1.25040.1 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.3.1.188-133.0.5274 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783 * Microsoft Edge v136.0.3240.92

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I have Windows 10 Professional & disabling web content in Edge, using gpedit, didn’t work for me, even after rebooting.  Strange, because Brink is usually right on.  However, 1) open Edge, 2) click the gear icon near the upper right corner (hovering over it shows “Page settings”, then 3) click show content off.  That worked & was simpler than the group policy.

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Phil Rabichow wrote:

However, 1) open Edge, 2) click the gear icon near the upper right corner (hovering over it shows “Page settings”, then 3) click show content off. That worked & was simpler than the group policy

Hi Phil Rabichow:

If you view the image Save_Us_from_MS attached to their post # 2776100 you can see they’ve turned OFF “Show Content” in their New Tab Page settings and this didn’t remove the search box.

I have a Win 10 Pro OS and turned off every possible New Tab Page (NTP) setting from the “gear” icon and that didn’t create the blank page that Save_Us_from_MS wants for their New Tab Page.  From my own MS Edge browser:

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Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.5854 * Firefox v138.0.4 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.25040.2-1.1.25040.1 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.3.1.188-133.0.5274 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783 * Microsoft Edge v136.0.3240.92

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Phil Rabichow

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lmacri wrote:

I have a Win 10 Pro OS and turned off every possible New Tab Page (NTP) setting from the “gear” icon and that didn’t create the blank page that Save_Us_from_MS wants for their New Tab Page.

Yes, I missed that part of their comment.  Myself, I just wanted to remove all the links & images on a new tab & thought that’s what Save_Us_from_MS wanted.  I didn’t notice that they wanted to remove the search option.

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